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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809410">la chute de notre maison</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze'>halfwheeze</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M, Madeline Usher centric, POV First Person</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:47:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,606</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809410</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>the fall of the house of usher from madeline usher's perspective.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Narrator/Roderick Usher</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>la chute de notre maison</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Roderick has a friend staying with us for a while. I have not seen him, but I’ve heard them wandering around the house, voices loud and boisterous, at least to my ears. I haven’t </span>
  <span>heard the sound of</span>
  <span> another being, human or otherwise, save my brother, in months. </span>
  <span>Even hearing Roderick has been like hearing nothing at all as he sweeps through the house, soundless and joyless, all the time. </span>
  <span>Even if I shouldn’t be able to witness it, the muffled conversation is music to hear. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Once upon a time, so long ago now, </span>
  <span>Roderick used to bring roses to my bedroom on our birthday</span>
  <span>, bright and new and something to bring the room to life</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>He’s so deathly afraid of bringing new things to me, as if I will perish from one modicum of dirt on the floor. Still, </span>
  <span>I wonder if he shall soon forget about me entirely, but he brings me my meals and my water, helps me to the bathroom. </span>
  <span>It would be quite terribly embarrassing if anyone were to see, but it’s only myself and Roderick, and Roderick is hardly someone. We are all that is left of the house of Usher, and that means we are hardly anything at all. Soon, our name will fall out of favor and the world will forget us, spinning madly on</span>
  <span>. The world moves along like that. It does not tend to linger. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>I feel the end near, some days. When I cannot stomach the food my brother brings, when I cannot leave my bed for how weak I am in the legs, I feel as if I am half gone already. </span>
  <span>Some days, I feel like a girl on a string, hanging above the floor and waiting to be cut from the marionette </span>
  <span>board to fall into nothing. I was a writer once, before the sickness stole my ability to hold a pen, and I miss it more than I miss anything else. I was a </span>
  <span>wanderer</span>
  <span> once, a girl who walked between trees and made frie</span>
  <span>nds with field mice, a girl that loved the forest as much as home. I don’t believe I’ve left this place in years. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Roderick’s friend has asked about me since his arrival. Roderick has told me how he fears the other man coming in to visit me, rattling something about bringing in dirt and such that would provide risk to my health, but something seems different. Off, some</span>
  <span>how. He speaks of his friend, this friend that he’s had since we were only children, without ever reminding me of this man’s name, and only nods me off when I make to ask. </span>
  <span>The visitor and he had quite the relationship as children, if I recall... something our father was not fond of. It taxes the mind to remember anything anymore, and my skull pounds against the implication of memory. I </span>
  <span>must</span>
  <span> stop trying. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Roderick stays for a moment longer when he stops in to feed me dinner this evening. </span>
  <span>He has a sheen of sweat to him that is more worrying that I would like to say, and his hands shake nearly so badly as mine do. Muttering</span>
  <span> to himself</span>
  <span>, he gives me a plate of small, finger foods, cut down to size as to not make things difficult for me. </span>
  <span>He sits on the side of the bed but doesn’t look at me, doesn’t say a single word meant be in my direction. </span>
  <span>I clear my throat, not having spoken yet today, but feeling an overwhelming need to do so. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Roderick,” I start, the name catching in my throat, but it’s enough to get his attention.</span>
  <span> He startles as if he had forgotten I was here at all, but I press onward.</span>
  <span> “What’s on your mind?” </span>
  <span>I ask. He gives me a ghost of his smile. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing, Madeline. Quite nothing, isn’t it?” he asks, seemingly just to himself, before standing</span>
  <span> from the bed. “Nothing, indeed. Why would it be something?” he continues, hit hands tapping against his own skin. My brow creases without a thought, concern overwhelming me in its intensity. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Is everything okay? Does your friend fare well in the house?” I prod. Roderick snaps to attention, his eyes intense upon me, small balls of fire, taking everything in me not to react to the </span>
  <span>rush of fear that chases itself down my throat. Father had had a temper on him to be rivalled by none, and Roderick occasionally possesses his propensity for volume in a way that does not do much for anyone. </span>
  <span>He sees my fear and comes back into himself quickly, almost embarrassed at his </span>
  <span>near outburst</span>
  <span>. My twin gives me another ghostly smile. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“He does well. I am afraid it is I who is not faring my best, my sister,” </span>
  <span>he confesses, slumping down against the settee at the foot of my bed. It has only been there so long as Mother has been gone, stolen from beneath her vanity before we closed the room off, unable to be accessed by anyone without my brother’s key. </span>
  <span>I sit up as best I can, muscles protesting and aching, organs feeling as if they will climb out of my body and run off without me, but I need to show support for Roderick. He has only ever supported me. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“And what bothers you? Are you growing sick as well?” I ask. It’s been one of my fears since falling ill, and one of Roderick’s as well; he’s always been terrified of growing infirm anyway. </span>
  <span>Roderick, however, shakes his head. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe I may have been sick all along. You have been in the care of a man </span>
  <span>irremovably</span>
  <span> sullied, my sister, unfit to live and to love in the eyes of God, </span>
  <span>I am not a good man.” Roderick stands again, pacing, his hands yanking through his hair as if to tear it from the roots and, suddenly, I feel weakened again. The room spins as I try to watch his movement, and perhaps I cry out, because </span>
  <span>Roderick steps closer to mind me again. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You have deserved so much better than I,” Roderick says. He then slips a pillow over my face, presses it against my mouth and nose, and that is all. It is not long before I am gone of this world, darkness collecting everything that I am, </span>
  <span>and I do not have it in myself to fight him. I cannot get this body to move, and my own brother is sending me from it. My own brother. My twin, my other half, my Roderick. The heartbreak is almost worse that the pain of leaving entirely. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Except, that I do not leave. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>I wake what might have been minutes or hours or months or years later, my back laid down against stone and my hands crossed upon my chest. A tomb. Roderick has placed me in a tomb. </span>
  <span>I do not believe it is the first time I have woken up since my placement, but it the first time I have been fully awake in my </span>
  <span>entombment</span>
  <span>. </span>
  <span>I lift a hand and, though it is easier than it was before my sleep, it hurts more than I can put to words. There is enough room for me to sit up, my head just barely not grazing the top of the </span>
  <span>cavity, and I must lean my back against the wall to catch my breath before</span>
  <span> doing anything else. Chest heaving, I press against the bricks. </span>
  <span>One, just one, moves just the slightest. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>I press upon it just so hard as I can and hear it fall to the floor on the other side. He must have me in the basement. I must still be in the house. I must. He cannot have </span>
  <span>buried</span>
  <span> me with strangers. He is still my Roderick. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He is not my Roderick. Whether he was successful or not, he has killed me, and that is that. He may share my blood, but he can no longer be my brother. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>It takes hours, days, I do not know how long it takes. My hands, they must be bloodied, for they are surely </span>
  <span>wet</span>
  <span>. I bang them against the stones anyway, knock brick after brick onto the basement floor, </span>
  <span>and soon, I begin kicking them out as well. I do not care for how I bleed, so long as I break out. Roderick did not take the wanderer from me, even if the sickness should have. There is a crack and a larger piece falls from the wall, a big enough </span>
  <span>puncture for my weakened body to slide to. I hit the floor and don’t even stop, crawling to the stairs and up them to find my Roderick, my twin, my killer. I help myself to my feet with the handle of the door and fling it open, rushing to find that horrible man. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He sits with his friend, closer than any two men should sit with formal respect. It seems I know now what Roderick had meant, but I no longer have the capacity to care. My brother, fear plain on his face, stands to see me but freezes, and I waste no time. I clear the room and throw my body upon his, scratching at him</span>
  <span> and bashing him with bleeding hands, screaming something terrible. The friend, nameless and faceless and careless, rushes out, and the noise of my grief is drowned out by the clattering of the house breaking down, the </span>
  <span>pillars and </span>
  <span>columns</span>
  <span> crashing down as the roof collapse upon them. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The chaos, I think, is what kills me, but I do not mind. The girl avenges her own life in this one. </span>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i did this for a final and got a 97 so i'm counting it as good.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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